Quick idea for Guild of the Nine

[Fafnir13]

Building the wonder enables mercenary production for every civilization but the owning player gets 1/4 of the gold spent on buying the mercenaries. Also essentially lowers the cost of mercenaries by 1/4 for the owning player. Gives the players a sufficient reason to want to build it but won't completely ban a player from that particular strategy of combat.

Thoughts?

Edit:

Or keep the world wonder Guild of the Nine and make it give all civs the ability to recruit mercenaries. The owner of the Guild would get 25% of the gold used to recruit them.

That way you get a rebate on any mercenaries bought for yourself, and a great bonus if anyone else overuses mercenaries.

Apparently I'm not the only one to come up with this idea.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

totally agreed. this would work a lil bit like the corporations in BTS wouldn't it?

anyway I support letting anyone puchase mercenaries

 

[Brokenbone]

I like the idea.

I wonder if mercenaries themselves might stand a small bit of spicing up at the same time, possibly in terms of unique promotions.

Example: the Scions of Patria modmod had an interesting "Bonus Pay" spell that some otherwise -10% strength "Unreliable" promoted warriors could use, to get a temporary boost cancelling out that penalty, and then some, for a short handful of turns, costing 1 gold. Letting mercenaries cast a 1 gold spell that, gave, say, the Morale promotion (which by design, wears off pretty quickly) or similar, mightn't be a terrible idea.

Alternate example: maybe in every battle, a mercenary has a chance of gaining the "Homesick" promotion, which like a "Crazed" eventually causes the mercenary to abandon your civ... but ideally, deciding to join whichever civ holds the Guild of the Nine (i.e., vanish from the field, reappear in the Guild city). That may be too powerful, as it means someone else is essentially paying to build the troops of the Guild owner's civilization, but it's just an idea. It would probably have to be an alternate to "rebates" and whatnot from the Wonder itself, i.e., a source of "quitter" troops from other nations would be worth something, compared to gold.

Mercenaries, as is, are basically "warriors" with weapon promotions, nothing else much going for them, sort of like blank canvases for future promotions. I guess my mind turns to making them more interesting, not just the good stuff, but also the bad.

 

[BugReportage]

My guess is Kael is reworking guilds right now... I seriously doubt he'd take out Cult of the Dragon... Considering an entire scenario is supposed to be dedicated to them.

 

[ultimaterez]

Actually, Fafnir, that idea sounds quite excellent. Question though - have you ever had the AI use an mercs? Perhaps the computers might need a little digital nudge to get them to actually make use of that option so that you could reap the bounties of their spending.

 

[PapaMonkey]

Hmm... I like this. I rarely use them, but sometimes they are helpful to have around. And it makes sense that everyone should be able to get them. This gives benefit and opens a new chapter in unit warfare, evening the balance somewhat for a civ that's down on its luck.

And I agree that the AI should be given a 'digital nudge' to motivate them to use this option.

Lastly - how about this flavorwise: Give the hippus a blanket reduction of 25% that would stack with this cash-back. So if they had the Guild of Nine, they'd pay really only be paying 50% for the mercs.

 

[rocklikeafool]

I support this idea. But I'd say that the civ that builds em should be able to get units it can't normally build, same as before. That way there still is a significant benefit to owning Guild of the Nine. (Instead of havin a useless guild like the Thieves Guild.)

 

[Fafnir13]

Some AI weights set to buying mercenaries would definitely be needed. I would add that something would need to be done about the AI's lack of unit support cost. We already get massive stacks that are beyond a human player's ability to support. Add in a bunch of mercs bought with the AI's increased commerce and the stacks of doom might become too much to handle on higher difficulties. A hard cap, based on difficulty, map size, and speed (or just set the cost based on game speed) would be appropriate. A hard cap might be a good idea anyways.

Some other, random thoughts:

A loyalty promotion that gives merc units a 30% chance to disband if attacking the guild holding Civ.

Mercs have expiration timers, requiring further payments to keep them employed.

Unique merc units based on the founding Civ. Finally everyone could hire the Hippus mounted mercs.

Some bonus for the Hippus would be thematically appropriate. Reduced cost, faster build speed of the wonder itself, and increase in the percentage of gold gained from other Civs buying mercs, et cetera.

Perhaps go so far as to be able to trade the ability to buy mercs, much like open borders. Suddenly, everyone wants to be your friend and the founding Civ has a little incentive to not take over the world (for a few turns at least).

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

lots of nice ideas in here, keep it up guys

btw, everyone should probably check out the Expanded Mercenaries thread... that's how it should be implemented imho

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=285468

 

[zup]

Thief guild is not worthless!

crime event => ratcatchers option => higher crime rate => more crime events => ratcatchers etc etc etc ...........

Helps with monotonous steamrolling.

 

[sputnik323]

If other nations have access to the guild of the nine, how about more advanced mercs based on the founding civ's technologies. So if the founding civ has researched sturrups, civs that have the guild can buy more advanced horse archer mercs (at a higher price) - the founding civ then gets ~25% of the cash like people have been discussing. The mercenaries could then based on the founding civ's technology give adepts - mages - hunters - and whatever else. The costs should be higher for the better units. - maybe the hippus should buy mounted units at a discounted price too.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I actually think this should be reversed: the guy who has built the wonder has a chance to get some mercenaries based on a tech that someone else with the guild ( but NOT the wonder ) has. that would be a nice perk

 

[rocklikeafool]

Thief guild is not worthless!

crime event => ratcatchers option => higher crime rate => more crime events => ratcatchers etc etc etc ...........

Helps with monotonous steamrolling.

And, yet, most of the time, you manage to do fine w/o it.